Digital photo image processing is a rapidly growing technology area. Digital cameras are in wide use today and a user has many options as to how the digital images are converted to a photograph. For example, the user may simply transfer the image to his/her own printer for printing directly from the digital camera or via a personal computer where the user may modify the image as desired (e.g., crop, improve quality, etc.). Another option currently available is to send the digital image electronically to a service that will print and mail the desired photos or other product having the image thereon (e.g., mugs, blankets, CDs, etc.) back to the user/customer to allow for in-store pickup. The service may also offer a virtual photo album where a customer uploads and stores their digital images for access by him/herself and others who the primary customer desires to have access to the virtual photo album such as family and friends, for example. These “secondary customers” accessing the virtual photo album may then select and order prints and/or other product from the service as desired.
The present invention concerns this second option where a customer uploads their digital images over a network, such as the Internet, to a photofinisher service that will print and mail or otherwise make available for in-store pickup the ordered photos and/or other product to the primary and/or secondary customers.
A typical internet photofinisher service has one or more servers which store customer files comprising one or more digital images that the customer has uploaded to the server. The image data may be stored indefinitely or, more typically, is stored for a mutually agreed upon time (e.g., 60-90 days) to make efficient use of available server memory on an ongoing basis. An image file size is dictated in large part by the image resolution which is typically measured in units of pixels per area. Thus, the higher the resolution, the larger the file size. Furthermore, the larger the file size, the longer it takes a customer to upload the file to the photofinisher server. Additionally, more storage capacity is needed for the storage of higher resolution images. It would therefore be desirable from a customer satisfaction standpoint to require a high resolution image only when necessary for good image quality in the ordered print size and/or product.